Land of the Dead
by Koukoi1412
Summary: 24 months, 730 days, 17,520 hours, and the entire dark continent. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a haniwa and a magi counting down from world's end.
1. Chapter 1

When magi collide, a planet dies.

They clash head on, a black and white typhoon screaming through the heart of the empire — there are four, and then there are two, and then he is gone.

 _"I'm sorry."_

 _"Huh?"_

 _"You leave me with no other choice."_

 _"What's going on? What have you done to my borg?"_

 _"Once this spell is done, you're never coming back."_

 _"What? Wait! Hakuryuuuuuuuuuu-"_

The victor lays down his staff. He won and his best friend is gone and he just killed a person. If this is what it takes to be a magi, Aladdin thinks, he's nothing but a failure.

 _Forgive me_ , he whispers to the rapidly darkening sky, and hopes the rukh will grant them a second chance.

* * *

A lone figure drifts through the emptiness of space — dark, blank, and lost. And probably cold, if his nerves weren't too numb to discern the sensation.

 _Is this the end? Am I dead?_

His last memory is of hurtling at dizzying speeds through never-ending space as a stronger force overwhelms him, crushing his borg and suffocating his last conscious thoughts, all the while casting him farther, father away from Earth, from Hakuryuu.

 _Hakuryuu—_

Hakuryuu's not here.

This is the price of defeat.

 _Hakuryuu, it seems you're on your own._

Somewhere,a battle wages, and he has no doubts on the outcome. He knows, just utterly _knows_ , who will win.

 _I couldn't have picked a bette_ _r king candidate..._

The magi smirks. Hakuryuu isn't stupid. Hakuryuu won't let go.

So he does.

Eyelids close. Oblivion. Well, almost. A cocoon-shaped borg tumbles forward, drifting aimlessly on waves of ether. Up. Down. Up. Down. Braid swooshing, fading out.

Silence.

His head hurts. Spiky tips brush down and hang limp on solid gray below. _Land_. His feet touch down on terra firma, and it's never felt this good.

 _Where am I?_

Desolation fans out in every direction, ending in and returning to nothingness. This trance-like conglomeration of nightmares and shadows can only be one place.

The land of the dead.

 **TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

In the stillness of light's absence, a magi's braid whips around, slicing the hollows. The vast dark gradually comes to an end as Judal takes his first step on land. There's a dimly glowing halo in the distance, and his feet begin carving a path towards it.

Rough undulations, jagged scars, cliffs jutting out of nowhere, and an assortment of craters are only a few of the ominous landforms erupting from this barren mass of decay. _How fitting_ , he thinks, _for retribution_.

There are shades to darkness, he notices, once his eyes adjust to the lack of light. In this world, there is neither moon nor sun. The heavens are a canopy of pure black illuminated by pyramidal glitches in the fabric of eternal night. It's so dark, one can barely see where the earth threads itself into sky.

Higher ground reveals a huge, basin-like depression filled with sand, as if an ocean bed had indulged its thirst and swallowed every last drop of life. He treads on, too intrigued by this discovery to notice loose powder taking refuge under his toenails or the bits of grit that cling to his braid with the grip of limpets. His feet scour dust around because no wind will.

Judal no longer stubs his toe every few minutes, but his mind has yet to make sense of this world's perversion of life. At the next step, he falters, loses his balance, and falls facedown on leached ash. He furiously wipes his arms on his pants, which now imbue the pale taint of death. With only his footsteps to mark the transience of time, he walks and he waits for nature's voice to pop out any moment, but the shadows are still and the wind does not speak. Here even the magnificent humming of the rukh has lost its eloquence.

The faint glow he's been following emanates from a region of vile gas, rich with otherworldly hues. The river of luminous fog swirls around in clashes of color, reaching out to hug the earth and sky with the appearance of a writhing rainbow.

Judal surveys the scene with bored eyes. This would have been beautiful, perhaps, if it reminded him of anything else.

Fed up with the clinginess of land, he commands the rukh to lift him up, and that's when he realizes the greatest distortion of this place. He does fly, for the rukh have always obeyed him, but only a foot above ground. And just like that, two decades of treading sky crumple into noiseless smoke, leaving him land-bound and lost.

Something's very, very wrong with this world. This is no place for eyes or ears or humans or magi or anything.

 _You sure are lucky, Hakuryuu,_ he thinks, still groggy from the residual effects of dying yet not being dead.

He's not dead.

But he's not among the living.

* * *

"Alibaba-chan! Tell me about your journey. I want to hear every little detail, okay?"

"Sure. Where do I start?"

"Oh, the part where you found yourself in that strange dimension. And when you met up with Judal-chan."

"Well, two people went on a journey and returned to find the world reborn in their absence. Along the way they wondered why the sun and moon were hiding. They decided the stars alone were kind enough to visit the land of the dead."

* * *

 _If I'm trapped in a dream, there must be some way out,_ Judal thinks, deciding to explore this alien wilderness born of rock, mist, and darkness. Could this be the dwelling of the depraved? No, if that were so, there should be more people here. After what felt like hours of travelling, not a single living soul has shown up.

He is alone.

"Aarghh! It's too quiet!" He lashes out, flashing lightning...and...no lightning.

He is alone, no ice, no lightning, in a crazy place where the existence of nothing fills the gap of everything, and Hakuryuu's not here, and he just _is_.

Hakuryuu's probably brewing up a storm back in Kou, bringing their year-long efforts to fruition. Kouen will die soon. His dear king vessels will battle for supremacy, and one by one, the weak will be eliminated until only the greatest is left. Koumei first, then Kouha, Kougyoku, and finally, Kouen. Hakuryuu will emerge the victor; he knows this, as surely as he knows the flight patterns of rukh.

 _So long, Old Hag. Your fault for not accepting my offer in Sindria, and choosing that good for nothing drunkard king._

She'll die along with everyone else; the earth will swallow them up and thank him for it. Hakuei will be spared because Hakuryuu's got a soft spot for her. Despite all his talk otherwise, the prince of depravity can't purify himself of such bothersome filial attachments.

That's the thing with family. They drag you down.

Judal laughs.

He barely notices as his feet get caught in thick, sinewy strings, and he trips. Again.

Closer inspection shows a network of low-lying vines laid out like traps on the ground. This will be a rather difficult maze to navigate through, and being careful is not one of Judal's strengths.

Wait. Something moved. _Impossible, plants don't-_

A strange creature stares at him, with violet eyes a foot in diameter and gouged lumps dotting his spongy frame like a sweet potato. Just another typical dungeon creature, only bigger. Never mind. Nothing defeats this magi.

"Thalg Al-sarros!" Raising his wand, he creates a mighty…tiny icicle the length of his pinky. _No, no, no._ Never have the rukh failed him before.

"Thalg Al-sarros! Thalg! Thalg! Ahhhh!" His next attempts improve slightly. Now his icicles are large enough to grasp, and still utterly useless.

"Stop! Don't eat meeeeeeeee!"

He breaks into a run, cursing Kougyoku, cursing Hakuei, cursing everyone for being physically strong when he is not.

All his life, Judal has been surrounded by monsters, yet he has never been this afraid. And now, the monster has decided to swallow him whole. Squirm as he might, he can't escape the creature's hold.

 _This can't be the end. All it takes is one ice spear, just one, just one...Hakuryuu-_

Then, when all seems lost, and this strange version of existence seems so ironically useless after all - the universe's plot, perhaps, to prolong his torture - the tendrils of death snap in half, releasing him.

He breathes.

His savior makes swift work of the monster. Before Judal has a chance to get to his feet, the monster has been reduced to a blob of mush and goo.

Here it comes. A foot-tall, ocher-hued, roll-shaped, downright creepy CLAY DOLL. The curious creature has a sword, and a queer, vaguely familiar horn projects from its round head. So, this _thing_ is all it takes to rescue the great magi Judal.

The universe must be laughing right now. Judal ponders whether or not to laugh along with it, simply because either way makes no sense.

And then the creature talks. "Judal! Is that you?"

The freak of nature knows his name.

"Who-?"

"It's me, Alibaba."

* * *

"What were you thinking when you found him?"

"There I was stuck in the middle of nowhere trying my hardest to get back home, and the only other human in existence happened to be one of the last persons I'd ever want to meet."

"And what was Judal-chan's reaction?"

"He…looked as if he'd faint any minute. I think he actually did."

* * *

TBCIn the stillness of light's absence, a magi's braid whips around, slicing the hollows. The vast dark gradually comes to an end as Judal takes his first step on land. There's a dimly glowing halo in the distance, and his feet begin carving a path towards it.

Rough undulations, jagged scars, cliffs jutting out of nowhere, and an assortment of craters are only a few of the ominous landforms erupting from this barren mass of decay. _How fitting_ , he thinks, _for retribution_.

There are shades to darkness, he notices, once his eyes adjust to the lack of light. In this world, there is neither moon nor sun. The heavens are a canopy of pure black illuminated by pyramidal glitches in the fabric of eternal night. It's so dark, one can barely see where the earth threads itself into sky.

Higher ground reveals a huge, basin-like depression filled with sand, as if an ocean bed had indulged its thirst and swallowed every last drop of life. He treads on, too intrigued by this discovery to notice loose powder taking refuge under his toenails or the bits of grit that cling to his braid with the grip of limpets. His feet scour dust around because no wind will.

Judal no longer stubs his toe every few minutes, but his mind has yet to make sense of this world's perversion of life. At the next step, he falters, loses his balance, and falls facedown on leached ash. He furiously wipes his arms on his pants, which now imbue the pale taint of death. With only his footsteps to mark the transience of time, he walks and he waits for nature's voice to pop out any moment, but the shadows are still and the wind does not speak. Here even the magnificent humming of the rukh has lost its eloquence.

The faint glow he's been following emanates from a region of vile gas, rich with otherworldly hues. The river of luminous fog swirls around in clashes of color, reaching out to hug the earth and sky with the appearance of a writhing rainbow.

Judal surveys the scene with bored eyes. This would have been beautiful, perhaps, if it reminded him of anything else.

Fed up with the clinginess of land, he commands the rukh to lift him up, and that's when he realizes the greatest distortion of this place. He does fly, for the rukh have always obeyed him, but only a foot above ground. And just like that, two decades of treading sky crumple into noiseless smoke, leaving him land-bound and lost.

Something's very, very wrong with this world. This is no place for eyes or ears or humans or magi or anything.

 _You sure are lucky, Hakuryuu,_ he thinks, still groggy from the residual effects of dying yet not being dead.

He's not dead.

But he's not among the living.

* * *

"Alibaba-chan! Tell me about your journey. I want to hear every little detail, okay?"

"Sure. Where do I start?"

"Oh, the part where you found yourself in that strange dimension. And when you met up with Judal-chan."

"Well, two people went on a journey and returned to find the world reborn in their absence. Along the way they wondered why the sun and moon were hiding. They decided the stars alone were kind enough to visit the land of the dead."

* * *

 _If I'm trapped in a dream, there must be some way out,_ Judal thinks, deciding to explore this alien wilderness born of rock, mist, and darkness. Could this be the dwelling of the depraved? No, if that were so, there should be more people here. After what felt like hours of travelling, not a single living soul has shown up.

He is alone.

"Aarghh! It's too quiet!" He lashes out, flashing lightning...and...no lightning.

He is alone, no ice, no lightning, in a crazy place where the existence of nothing fills the gap of everything, and Hakuryuu's not here, and he just _is_.

Hakuryuu's probably brewing up a storm back in Kou, bringing their year-long efforts to fruition. Kouen will die soon. His dear king vessels will battle for supremacy, and one by one, the weak will be eliminated until only the greatest is left. Koumei first, then Kouha, Kougyoku, and finally, Kouen. Hakuryuu will emerge the victor; he knows this, as surely as he knows the flight patterns of rukh.

 _So long, Old Hag. Your fault for not accepting my offer in Sindria, and choosing that good for nothing drunkard king._

She'll die along with everyone else; the earth will swallow them up and thank him for it. Hakuei will be spared because Hakuryuu's got a soft spot for her. Despite all his talk otherwise, the prince of depravity can't purify himself of such bothersome filial attachments.

That's the thing with family. They drag you down.

Judal laughs.

He barely notices as his feet get caught in thick, sinewy strings, and he trips. Again.

Closer inspection shows a network of low-lying vines laid out like traps on the ground. This will be a rather difficult maze to navigate through, and being careful is not one of Judal's strengths.

Wait. Something moved. _Impossible, plants don't-_

A strange creature stares at him, with violet eyes a foot in diameter and gouged lumps dotting his spongy frame like a sweet potato. Just another typical dungeon creature, only bigger. Never mind. Nothing defeats this magi.

"Thalg Al-sarros!" Raising his wand, he creates a mighty…tiny icicle the length of his pinky. _No, no, no._ Never have the rukh failed him before.

"Thalg Al-sarros! Thalg! Thalg! Ahhhh!" His next attempts improve slightly. Now his icicles are large enough to grasp, and still utterly useless.

"Stop! Don't eat meeeeeeeee!"

He breaks into a run, cursing Kougyoku, cursing Hakuei, cursing everyone for being physically strong when he is not.

All his life, Judal has been surrounded by monsters, yet he has never been this afraid. And now, the monster has decided to swallow him whole. Squirm as he might, he can't escape the creature's hold.

 _This can't be the end. All it takes is one ice spear, just one, just one...Hakuryuu-_

Then, when all seems lost, and this strange version of existence seems so ironically useless after all - the universe's plot, perhaps, to prolong his torture - the tendrils of death snap in half, releasing him.

He breathes.

His savior makes swift work of the monster. Before Judal has a chance to get to his feet, the monster has been reduced to a blob of mush and goo.

Here it comes. A foot-tall, ocher-hued, roll-shaped, downright creepy CLAY DOLL. The curious creature has a sword, and a queer, vaguely familiar horn projects from its round head. So, this _thing_ is all it takes to rescue the great magi Judal.

The universe must be laughing right now. Judal ponders whether or not to laugh along with it, simply because either way makes no sense.

And then the creature talks. "Judal! Is that you?"

The freak of nature knows his name.

"Who-?"

"It's me, Alibaba."

* * *

"What were you thinking when you found him?"

"There I was stuck in the middle of nowhere trying my hardest to get back home, and the only other human in existence happened to be one of the last persons I'd ever want to meet."

"And what was Judal-chan's reaction?"

"He…looked as if he'd faint any minute. I think he actually did."

* * *

 **TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

"Alibaba? That spineless, useless, farce of a king vessel Alibaba? Impossible! You're dead! I saw Hakuryuu cut you down with his scythe!"

 _He's dead. He's dead. I'm talking to the dead. What kind of crazy, distorted dimension is this, where the dead are undead and the undead are alive?_

"Things happened," is the haniwa's excuse for his pitiful appearance.

"Alright, I get it. I must be hallucinating." With a snap of his fingers, he drives away this weird figment of his imagination, but it stays. He rubs his eyes and it's still there.

Interesting. He has been exiled to a place where Aladdin's friend exists. In Judal's eyes, this world is a weird and repulsive wasteland. Alibaba is a disgusting waste of a king vessel. How fitting, then, for them to end up together. Maybe the universe is not so bad, after all.

The presumed calm of the haniwa's expressionless face grates on his nerves like nothing else. Judal wants to give him a thorough shake, stab him with an icicle and twirl him around until his tiny brain gets flung out of the cavities in his skull, but his power reserves are low and not worth spending on an inanimate being.

"What's wrong, Judal?"

An inanimate, moving, talking, _annoying,_ being.

He grabs the self-proclaimed Alibaba - that looks nothing like Alibaba - and attempts to unscrew its head to figure out the mechanism at work. How is this even possible? What source of energy enables this creature to go on with its half-life? He's baffled and this crazy, crazy garbage dump of a world is already too much to deal with and he has to hurry back and find Hakuryuu and staring at this clay doll may be the final link in the universe's ploy to drive him insane.

"So," he says, letting go of the stubbornly intact head, "which way leads to Kou?"

"I don't know, but in that direction is a jungle full of the strangest plants I've ever seen and monsters like the one that attacked you."

Judal decides to follow Haniwa Alibaba into the forest. He's just curious, he reasons with the part of his brain that protests against having anything to do with his favored king candidate's enemy. He needs to get back and assist Hakuryuu in case Chibi Magi sides with Kouen and causes trouble for the youngest prince. Granted, there's not much he can do if Aladdin decides to send him back into deep space. Still...

 _Impossible_ , he groans, as his feet sink deeper into soggy mush. The farther they trek into this thicket of monstrosities, the weirder everything gets. And more disgusting.

"Arrgh! Whatever you are, I've had enough of you. I'm leaving!"

"Where are you going?"

"Somewhere I can get away from useless trash! So long! Hope you die for real!"

Thirty seconds later and Judal has another encounter with a giant potato head. His instincts kick in this time, reminding him how to run and which foot to move first, but a tendril lashes at his waist, and once again he's entangled in the tenacious grip of tentacle appendages, pulling him towards an enormous cavern overflowing with row upon row upon row of tusk-like teeth. Kouha would have loved to see this, he thinks, and he wonders how his mind could conjure images of the sick creep at a time like this. The thing pulls, squeezes, suffocates, and those rows of spearheads are inches away from his body and he feels so tiny, so defenseless and this is such a shameful end for a magi and the haniwa saves him.

The monster is vanquished. He is rescued by a clay doll. Again.

How embarrassing. The universe has condemned him to eternal humiliation at the hands of someone he never deemed strong enough to be an enemy. Still, he acknowledges that right now, in haniwa form, Alibaba is more powerful than he is. Self-preservation overrides disgrace, forcing him to stay.

"H-haniwa…"

The haniwa's head pops off.

 _HE'S DEAD?!_ The turn of events is so unexpectedly ironic that Judal the Great dissolves into Judal Stupefied. And then creepy takes on a whole new level.

"Oops." The severed head bounces, cartwheels on the ground, rolls to a full stop at its feet and…talks. The decapitated body bends down, picks up the clay head, and places it back on its neck.

"Looks like I was hit once. I'll have to be more careful next time," the reassembled clay body says, as if beheading was as normal as eating breakfast.

 _He's not dead? Actually he is – his body is – unless someone attempted to preserve it -_

"Judal?" White eyes stare at him – white…circles? Dots? Holes? What should he call those things?

Haniwa Alibaba approaches the groaning magi and taps his knee. "Shall we proceed?"

"You're alive," Judal acknowledges, feeling equal parts indifferent and disappointed by this realization, "and as useless as ever. Do the world a favor and just disappear forever." He kicks the clay doll with all his might. The haniwa moves a distance of three inches. Judal's foot feels like it's been stomped on by three elephants.

 _Why am I here again_? Judal asks himself for the hundredth time _. Oh right, it's Chibi Magi 's fault._

As he nurses his sore toes, his strange companion watches him, ever silent…out of spite, perhaps? He's thinking …maybe he's thinking… is that clay doll brain even functional?

"Hey Judal, let's call a truce."

 _Who does this creepy lump think he's talking to_?

Judal straightens his back, frowning, "Why should I?"

"You need me to defend you from the creatures here. As for me, your ability to fly will help me reach my destination sooner."

"No way! What makes you think a magi like me would ever team up with the likes of you?" he screeches, indignant, for though he may be weakened with the lack of rukh, he will never, ever let himself be a clay doll's lackey.

"Suit yourself," says the haniwa, accepting his decision without further ado. The worst part is, he doesn't gloat. Not once. The fallen magi can't stand it.

Judal takes five steps away and the world moves, flipping him over and snapping closed. He can't move, can't breathe as a cavern sucks his life out. How was he to know the pad-shaped leaves belonged to a monster flytrap? He has yet to process the situation when his attacker is slashed open, freeing him from the dangers of plant bile.

 _That's it. This is a pit of monsters and there's no way I'm spending an eternity trying to outsmart every single one._

"Alright! I give up! I'm sticking with you from now on. But only 'cause I need to get back to Hakuryuu as soon as I can!"

"Oh. That's good," Haniwa Boy agrees. "I'm in a hurry to get home too. So, guess we're on the same boat?"

That ticks him off big time.

"Listen, peanut-brained ha-ni-wa. You and I are different. I am a magi and you're just a petty king vessel who was only chosen 'cause that chibi don't know any better. Don't ever, ever dare group me with your puny self!"

It would have been, could have been the perfect insult, if his stomach hadn't chosen that moment to let out an embarrassing rumble.

"You're hungry," says Haniwa Boy.

"I'm not!" _Never show weakness to anyone, even the person closest to you, and especially not this brat!_

Haniwa Boy rises to his feet and starts to walk. Where to, Judal has no idea.

"We should look for food," he suggests. "Earlier I saw some plants that look edible."

"Nah, I'll just wait till we find a peach."

"Judal. You do realize there aren't any fruit trees here similar to those in our world."

"What? No peaches? What's for breakfast, lunch, and supper, then?"

"Hmm...vegetables. They _are_ vegetables, I think, even if they walk and...eat people."

"VEGETABLES? Are you insane? You don't feed a magi that disgusting plant scum!"

Haniwa Boy turns, gives him a blank look, turns about-face, and carries on.

* * *

"Sounds perfectly like the Judal-chan I know. Why'd you help him, Alibaba-chan?"

"It was the right thing to do. Plus, I thought his magic would be a great help navigating the world of black sky. Guess what, he couldn't fly, either."

"That's all?"

"Now that I think of it, maybe I wanted a break from the silence. The absence of human language can drive a person crazy, you see."

* * *

Haniwa and magi plod farther through forest and desert, without the sun to keep track of time, in this convoluted universe where the moon does not exist and irregular triangles of light are called stars.

They reach a sea of mushroom trees, huge pillars of what appear to be giant asparagus with violet turrets. There are bundles of tendrils similar to cockroach antennae, plants resembling wormshells or with spiny stalks that branch out like tarantula legs, and other twisted parodies of nature that could only have been designed by Al Thamen's head boss.

An hour later, his belly is a cave hatching thunder. Haniwa Boy offers him more of the icky green stuff, which he vehemently refuses. He sees chickens, he sees ducks, he rubs his eyes and the chickens and ducks are gone. There were chicks, right? Just beside the nest of eggs? What, not even a single duckling? And then he hears a cow.

Finally he surrenders, knowing he can't last another hour without a bite of something…anything. Let it go down in history that the great magi of Kou died of overdosing on barbecued plant brains. He simply has to eat.

His feet grind to a halt, unable to take another step. He's starving and exhausted, two unfamiliar and equally frustrating sensations. So what if Haniwa Boy sees his moment of weakness? Haniwa Boy is no one.

Judal takes a deep breath, squeezing all his remaining energy into his next words. "Is there no food anywhere?"

* * *

"What sort of food did you eat?"

"My body didn't need food. As for Judal, he had no choice but to eat whatever was available. Plants, mostly – if you'd call those wriggling things plants - but that guy really hates vegetables. You'd think I was forcing poison down his throat for lunch."

"True! He's just like me. And I suppose he kept begging for a peach or two?"

"He asked me around a triple dozen times if I ever heard of a clan of fanalis that could transform into giant peaches. I said no, the idea was too impossibly morbid to be true. That was the first time I ever saw him cry."

* * *

"Judal, here's dinner!" Haniwa Boy calls out, emerging from the rushes just as Judal figures out that a stack of firewood shouldn't be thrown into the fire all at once. Squirming in his fingerless limbs is a blob that is gross and slimy and alive. He swats it and tosses it to the magi, who bashes it on the ground over and over until it resembles the mangled corpses of animals he would inflict ice torture upon as a kid.

The squid-bird-insect-plant is promptly skewered and roasted to a crisp. "Alright Judal, eat up!" says Haniwa Boy, with the guts to sound cheerful as the magi stares gloomily at his so-called dinner, the mere sight of which makes his stomach turn.

This is what food means. Food means edible; edible means not palatable. It means cram disgusting stuff in your belly and do not throw up. Judal bravely swallows down the thing and makes a mental note to sample every sort of cuisine in Hakuryuu's kitchen when he gets back.

* * *

"Honestly, Kougyoku, I had never called anyone weak before, and I thought he deserved the honor. He was more spoiled than a prince! But when I saw him lapping up the water like a camel, I questioned myself if I was being too hard on him."

"I trust your judgment."

"He never did."

* * *

"How'd you find water so easily?"

"I grew up in a desert. Water was scarce in Balbadd. We had to recognize all potential sources back there."

It's heartbreaking to acknowledge that he's dependent on this talking puppet for his very existence. This joke of a king vessel with the nerve to call him a spoiled brat. The last thing he wants is this creature so full of the light. _Come on_ , he challenges. _Dazzle me. Show me what Hakuryuu and Sinbad and Kougyoku saw in you! Tell me what you had that fascinated them!_

Haniwa Boy's reaction is drowned out by the buzzing rhapsody of a swarm of orange mosquitoes.

 _Why oh why oh why oh why of all the million horrid things from our world, did it have to be MOSQUITOES?!_

* * *

"It's a wonder you managed to put up with him. Judal-chan can be a real pain sometimes."

"When there's only two of you, you either get along or go insane."

* * *

It's been three days since he's landed here, and already Judal feels like a hermit.

There are no beds, no spare clothes, no flying carpets, and no bathrooms. There's no one to tease, or throw peaches at, no one to clap at his demonstration of magic. No destruction or annihilation, no one to manipulate, and no one to be manipulated by. Just a week ago, he was the magi of Kou, the greatest empire in the world. Here, there is no king but the reigning silence.

He gets a rock and tosses it at his companion's back. Haniwa Boy sidesteps, evades the missile, and keeps walking. Frustrated, he punches a nearby tree trunk, immediately regretting it when the sleeve of his _choli_ tears on a thorn.

"Argh! How do you mend this?"

Haniwa Boy inspects the damage and suggests using a cactus needle and some filaments from the grass-vines.

"What? Me? Forget it. I can't sew."

"Neither can I," Haniwa Boy admits. "I don't have fingers."

* * *

"Judal-chan sewing? That guy can't make four stitches without snarling the thread!"

"He can't walk four miles without running into a monster."

* * *

Five days have passed. Judal knows, because the sky has regularly grown a shade darker five times. He is bored. And hungry. Bored and hungry. He can see muscles in his thighs and calves where they once ached. That's a good thing.

That's the _only_ good thing.

"Let's play," Haniwa Boy suggests one day.

 _Won't this creep ever shut up?_

"I know a lot of childhood games. How 'bout you?"

 _Games, he says? Silly make-believe or tripping on one another and other stuff for fools and toddlers that do not involve murder or torture or other fun things. What a bore._

"I had better things to do than engage in fool's pastimes."

Haniwa Boy sends him a prolonged stare. "You never played, even once?"

Did he? There was the Old Hag and her dolls. There were the palace guards, members of the organization, the royal family…

"Arm wrestling," he concedes at last.

"Eh? That's a surprise. Considering you couldn't defend yourself from the even the smallest of the creatures here."

"Ha! Even I could beat you at arm wrestling, in that pitiful state."

"You sure? Wanna give it a try?"

Haniwa Boy wins.

Judal sulks away and manages to get himself in yet another scrape. His companion searches for him when he doesn't show up for supper, and of course he can't because of his current predicament. He's dangling upside-down, crucified among brambles, hoping a trail of fire ants won't think of him as an exotic delicacy.

"Cut this, Haniwa Boy. I can't move!"

"You know, you really should learn to be more polite when asking for help," his companion chides him while hacking down vines and branches. "There's a saying that goes, 'Don't bite off the hand that feeds-'

"How dare you compare me to a dog!"

The last loop snaps and Judal falls to the ground with a thud, too exhausted to curse his luck.

* * *

"Was Judal-chan mean to you?"

"I guess he enjoyed seeing my head decapitated every once in a while. But otherwise, even if he acted like a thug, he was about as harmful as a frightened kitten."

* * *

On their sixth day, Judal knocks into a cactus fruit that resembles a peach, so juicy-looking that he wants to savor every drop of its precious beauty…

...but it's full of thorns inside. He slams it on the ground, staining the soil with chunks of blue pulp.

"How dare you cheat me like this! If you're not a peach then don't pretend to be one!"

Even his beloved fruits have abandoned him. The last one he tried, thinking it was a pomegranate, had eyes.

 _Is this the world we promised to create? Is this my reward for helping defeat Al Thamen?_

"Food," offers Haniwa Boy, sounding quite amused, and Judal's belly squelches in revolt.

"What's the matter, Judal?"

"I'm not hungry." He wraps himself in his shadow and pretends to nap. The thing in Haniwa Boy's arms reminds him of someone.

 _Gyokuen._

But she's dead. Hakuryuu killed her. It's over.

 _Unless it isn't._

His stomach rumbles.

This, yes, _this_ is what despair sounds like. It's louder than Gyokuen's whisper, louder than the whistling of Aladdin's staff, and seems to fill up the space of a little, weeping boy.

* * *

"Now that I think of it, I should have bopped him real hard on the head. Maybe if I did he'd have pulled himself together sooner. Things wouldn't be so complicated."

"Tell you a secret. If you really, really want Judal-chan to pay attention, all you need is to mess with his braid. Works every time."

* * *

They talk, sometimes. About this world. About their world. About food and traditions and people.

"Among all the king candidates, why'd you choose Hakuryuu?" the former king vessel asks, after a boring discussion of textiles.

Judal feels a shiver at the mention of Hakuryuu's name. It's so good to hear that he graces Haniwa Boy with an answer.

"The others would not do. Take that hag for instance, she cries too much."

"You mean Kougyoku? Sure, but I've seen Hakuryuu shed tears on a couple of occasions."

Judal grits his teeth. A brat like him has no right to insult this magi's chosen king. Now for a proper retaliation...

"Heh, being the wimp you are, you've probably cried more than both of them combined."

"Judal."

"You probably cried yourself to sleep lots of times, like a _girl_."

"Judal."

"Whaaat, pesky haniwa?" In the past weeks, he's acquired a dislike of that tone. It could only mean either of two things: Haniwa Boy senses danger or Haniwa Boy will make him work.

"I'll be by the river. You're in charge of supper tonight."

Judal curses and stalks away to find something decent to stuff into his aching belly. He returns with a vine covered in inch-long protrusions resembling leeches. _It's food, it's food, and it's delicious,_ he chants to himself with increasing fervor, as if a hundred repeats of this impossible refrain will make him believe. Later, when he forces down his meal, it isn't the disgusting shape of his food that upsets his stomach, but the realization that once again, he let Haniwa Boy win.

* * *

"Sometimes I wish I could figure out what Judal-chan is really thinking. Then his words wouldn't hurt as much."

"He was thinking about you, too. Sometimes, under the moonless night, he would go on and on about what you and your brothers were like as kids."

"Did he look happy then?"

"He was laughing almost every time."

"Then I'm glad. He remembered."

"Guess what his favorite story was? I never knew you could fall into the sewer while serving tea."

"HE TOLD YOU THAT?! What a shameless, insufferable, rude, foul-mouthed, insane, _girly_ , egoistic-"

"Now that's the description I was aiming for."

 **TBC**


	4. Chapter 4

The life of a space nomad, when summed up, is comparable to one thing: _Hakuei's cooking._

Nothing could be more cruel.

It's been forever since the dark magi was thrown out of Rakushou sky. Now he knows what to eat, what not to eat, what tastes like slime, and what requires pinching his nose to swallow it all in one watery-eyed gulp. In his few weeks trapped in this void, life has turned into a horrid _routine_ , and Judal detests those things even more than worms in his beloved peaches.

It doesn't bother that wherever he turns is monochrome gray. He has always been at home in the dark.

 _But not this dark,_ the spasmodic lurch of his stomach reminds him. He's fed up with the language of this place's rukh. He hates their memories, so sparse and noisy and borderline useless that he wants to cram them into a jar and shove the contents into Haniwa Boy's throat. They know this – crafty, annoying beings they are - and race to devour him first.

 _You were defeated by a twelve-year old,_ they whisper.

"I was not!"

 _Aladdin is more powerful._

"No! NEVER!"

 _You call yourself a magi? What a bluff._

"Won't you just shut up!"

"Judal."

"I didn't lose! That kid pulled off some cheap trick!"

"Judal."

"It's not over yet, you hear me? Just wait till I get back and-"

"Judal!"

"Whaaaat?!"

His ears pinpoint the location of the new voice. It's calmer, deeper than the whiny scratches of those pygmy birds he's been swatting at for ages. _Oh great. It's that baka haniwa._ That unbreakable, unsquishable, unkillable haniwa.

Button eyes stare at him, not flinching, not accusing, not even a blink flits past that expressionless face. At times like these, he prefers the very human Alibaba to this unreadable shell. It makes him feel kind of...just a tiny bit...and just for a moment...not like he believes it anyway...

 **Weak**.

 _Come on. Say it. Laugh at me. Laugh at what has become of Al Thamen's pet. Come on. Why aren't you saying anything?_

"Was that a private conversation with yourself? Just checking."

The silence burns. He's hallucinating and Haniwa Boy knows it.

"Hah! Got nothing better to do than pester me to death, boy?" he throws over his shoulder, amid the rising tempo of the rukh.

"It's probably dehydration," the pint-sized _thing_ says, oblivious to the disturbance in the air. "Better find some water before we go on."

Judal knows better. He's sick, that's what. Sick of being lost. Sick of doing nothing. He's so incredibly tired that every breath obly chokes him further. He wants to lie down and not have to wake up and just forget escaping this place, forget the world, forget Hakuryuu—

No, he can't forget Hakuryuu. He has to get back, no matter the cost. Muscles screech in protest as he forces himself to his feet. Somehow, he trudges forward despite the building fatigue, letting the walking clay pill's words drag his thickly calloused feet step after dreadful step. Shame constricts at his throat, permitting nothing but curses to flow through.

 _Come on, you can't give up now. Hakuryuu-_

They wander into a pool where the water comes up to his ankles. He gulps in his fill, uncaring whether it tortures his stomach afterward. He drinks and he drinks and wishes he could swallow the whole pond and never have to go thirsty again.

 _Madness. Sheer desperation._ Since when did food and water become the whole point of his existence? And peaches – every bite is peaches. Days revolve around the simplest things: finding a bath, gathering enough scratchy leafy things for a makeshift bed, watching his step for sand monsters. Has he really sunk this low?

Some hollow-cheeked stranger mocks him from the ripples. He recoils at the sight.

Who stole his reflection? His hair is a messy, lackluster coil. His face is a shade paler. His eyes are ruby fireflies - the kind that are alive - and this he finds most disturbing. The mark of this place is slowly manifesting on him. He better get out before he's fully enslaved.

Even Hakuryuu hasn't seen him without makeup. This pint-sized semi-human has, dilapidated and screaming terrified and animal-like. No trace of his former glory, no assurance of escape, no one but Haniwa Boy, Haniwa Boy, exasperating, vomit-inducing, nervous breakdown-triggering Haniwa Boy!

"Oi, Judal. Feeling any better now?"

"No."

"Wanna play a game?"

"No.

"Something bothering you?"

Judal snorts. _Sure. Everything. Like you, for instance._

He doesn't answer.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm bored." And that, he decides, is it. He's bored to death and the only familiar creature around is someone he can't blow up into a million pieces.

When Kou's magi is bored, the army trembles. Kouen and Hakuryuu know that all too well. But this kid doesn't. "Wanna play a game?" he asks with that inhuman calm, and it kills him. Had the rukh still been under Judal's bidding, fireworks would have engulfed the sky. But no sound comes, and no force, reminding him, once again, that he is utterly, hopelessly _powerless._

"Hey, I just remembered, there's this one I loved when I was younger. It's really fun, you know. One of us thinks of something, and draws it in the sand, and the other will have to guess what it is. We'll take turns and the one who gets the most correct answers wins!"

 _Why._

 _Why._

 _Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?_

* * *

"Funny thing is, take away his power, and he's just a normal guy like us. He does stupid things, he complains a lot, he gets nightmares. He even talks to himself! The first morning he actually woke up at dawn, he started blabbering about a prisoner in a room of black ice."

"What did you do?"

"I tossed a pile of wood into the fire."

"You just watched him?"

"I made breakfast."

* * *

"I miss the sea," Haniwa Boy confesses one day.

He didn't expect that. He doesn't care either, for just this morning, another tiny rip appeared near the left seam of his precious choli.

"Weren't you raised in a giant sand pile? Far as I know, deserts aren't huge holes filled with water."

"Balbadd City is near the ocean. The king - my father and I visited the ports a lot. And Aladdin and I stayed in Sindria for months. It brings back memories."

The sea reminds him of two people. A naive hag and a pathetic king. They better not end up together; that would be horrid. He shivers.

Having nothing else to do, he lines up the rukh one by one and makes them play follow the leader until he succumbs to boredom. That lasts about an hour.

"Judal-"

"I know. It's time to eat, right? Don't have to nag me, you bratty stick puppet!"

"No, no, haven't you noticed? It's drizzling. Your pants will get wet."

"Are you kidding me? There isn't a single cloud in the…whole…" The downpour takes him by surprise. Within seconds, he's drenched from head to toe in the coldest rainfall he's ever felt.

"…sky." The magi's overgrown bangs stick to his forehead, reminding him of a puppy caught in a storm. His companion appears, holding a giant lily pad mushroom to keep himself dry.

Haniwa Boy's grinning. _He is he is he is._

"Told you so."

* * *

"Poor Judal-chan. He must have felt lonely sometimes. I know I would."

"Nah, he just hated not having two dozen servants to order around."

"Eh…you sure that's all there was to it?"

"Positive."

* * *

"So, what's the point of this boring game again?"

"Really, Judal, haven't you ever played tag or hide-and-seek before?"

"I have!" he pants, exhausted from running in circles but thankful his legs haven't given out yet. "Always! In the palace! But not for food, and certainly not…aaaauuughhhh!"

He falls flat on the soggy earth, soaking his arms and garments in mud. All because a certain someone thought of hunting down bee-frog-rabbits for supper. In the middle of the night. On some crazy planet. Where he can barely see a thing. And keeps face-planting on disgusting brown goo.

"ENOUGH!" he roars. "I quit! I can't believe I agreed to your stupid, stupid, stupid idea of _fun!"_

"Hey, at least you won't be eating spider peanuts for the sixth night in a row!"

An hour passes; an assortment of creatures is either trapped or directly captured. Judal wastes no time binding them up with dried vines, a skill he's been forced to master, since _haniwas don't have fingers_. Before long, a hearty mass of appendages lies skewering over vine smoke. Roasted blobmonster, so far the least palatable item on their otherworldly menu. Yucky and smelly it may be, the day's excursions have affected Judal's appetite to the point that he no longer cares what it is he stuffs so greedily into his mouth.

He barely registers what his companion says next.

"Hey, Remember Kassim?"

"Who?" he asks, between mouthfuls. _Boy, am I famished. But what on earth is that haniwa up to? Don't tell me I'm in for another lousy speech!_

"Kassim, my friend—that dark metal vessel user you controlled when you faced off with Aladdin."

"Dark metal vessel user, eh? Aaah, I remember. It was so much fun playing with that guy. He was practically drowning in hate. So? What about 'im?"

No response.

"What's the matter? Feeling sentimental, haniwa?"

"He was my best friend." Sadness coats his words. Nostalgia, longing...regret? The Alibaba he remembers was just as emotional as Hakuryuu, but while Hakuryuu's feelings hardened into bitter revenge, the desert prince proved to be an unfathomable spectrum that confounds him to this day.

It hardly matters. He doesn't care. At all. Right.

"Oh really? Well, he's dead, isn't he?" his mouth shoots off, a reflex action.

"Yes."

"Then why bring him up? He's gone and we gotta get back soon and I have no time to put up with those stupid memories of yours!" Irritated, he chomps down harder than necessary, accidentally bruising his gum on a bone.

"Ouch!"

"Stop screaming like a girl," Haniwa Boy chides with a shake of his head.

"Hah? Well stop _talking_ about girls!"

"When was the last time I-"

"Twenty minutes ago! You said you want a girlfriend who can cook! Really, is that all you ever think about?"

"Want to know what goes on in my head?"

"Yeah."

"You're bored again, aren't you?"

Judal hums, a noncommittal sound, as Haniwa Boy delves into lengthy discussion on the nature of fate and the universe that somehow only makes him want to fall asleep.

 _Ugh. Where's Hakuryuu when you need him? This ain't my stuff. Who cares who owns the rukh as long as you control them?_

He can barely comprehend half of what the boy babbles about, but what little he can grasp annoys him. With every word, the noise of the real world trickles through the walls of this suspended reality, demanding a reckoning, wedging deep inside his conscious. Stealthily it comes, lithe ribbons of sound squirming into a sinuous net of barbed threads he can no longer filter out.

"I believe god is more than a distant consciousness. Humans lose their way; what would become of us if no one intervened?" As he speaks, the haniwa appears to blend in with the rugged landscape, connected in the same unfathomable manner those pinhead eyes allude to the deadness of stars. "We'd all be depraved."

The not-human pauses, seemingly lost in his thoughts. Supper turns to a wild churning in the magi's stomach. He feels like throwing up.

"We'd be swallowed by despair," Haniwa Boy continues. "By hate." His voice is distant, steeped in memories unsung by the rukh.

 _Hate?_

 _Heh! Try your luck, haniwa boy, dredge up a whole canyon of hatred and see what it looks like. You don't know…you don't…!_

"Know what I think? You're a hypocrite!" Judal spits out, somehow managing to hold down the urge to heave. "So, Hakuryuu was just another item on your agenda? Someone to fix, to prove something to the world? Depravity is a choice! How dare you call it wrong? You told Hakuryuu that all of us should choose our path to happiness. Of all the silly things you sputtered out, he believed that! But you – you—would never accept Hakuryuu! Never accept anyone with ideals other than your own! You're no different from everyone else, so stop pretending! When I get back, Hakuryuu and I are going to destroy the whole disgusting world, and you'll be the first one on our list!"

He trembles the last part out, beyond enraged now. His eyes are molten fire. If he could, he'd leave this little horned creep permanently stuck in a glacier. Haniwa Boy says nothing, only watches, as Judal twirls his wand to quiet his spiking pulse. It's been so long since he _felt_ , and it's no good.

He wonders why the walking lump of clay keeps messing with his mind, prying and trying to navigate all those twisted arcs and knots he dared not unravel all these years. The pure ones die early, right? Why then can he not eradicate this creature? This blight on the canvas of the world he and Hakuryuu desire? Maybe he should just kill him, right here and now. But how? Throw him off a cliff, perhaps? Stab him in the head? _Yeah, as if that would do do the trick_. Then he hears a dull whirring, or tiny crickets, or the stirrings of his conscience, or Haniwa Boy's whisper.

"Cursing fate isn't worth throwing one's life away."

 _What, think you can save me? Think you can turn my rukh white? You may be Solomon's fool, but I'm not!_

But if the white rukh don't control you, how do you know the black ones won't?

 _I won't let them. Never!_

Then who controls you? Who's your master, Judal?

 _I own myself!_

Who are you?

 _Who? Me? What kind of crazy question is that? I'm Judal! I'm the Oracle of Kou! I'm…I'm…_

He's the boy who reaches for the moon. He's a creature who will forever search for something stronger, something greater to decorate his feather-heavy footsteps. He's got the rukh twirled around his finger and scorns them for not being enough. He's a whirlwind that swallows the world everyday but the pieces escape through his skin, through his hair. There's a pit of quicksand inside him that sucks in everything before he can get to it. So he is always full and always empty.

He throws up at last. Acid burns his throat; his emptied stomach spasms. There's liquid forming at the corners of his eyes. And he thinks, Kougyoku knows him as the boy who steals peaches. Now he doesn't have the luxury to eat himself sick.

Haniwa Boy casts him a pitying look. "I don't look down on you," he says very slowly, as if he's struggling to come up with an answer for the both of them. "I just don't want to lose anyone else."

Judal asks himself if there was anything in the world he can't bear to lose - besides magic. _Hakuryuu_ , he thinks, and wonders why he can't come up with a longer list.

They do not talk for five days.

Five days later, Judal's feet lift off the ground for the first time.

* * *

"I hated the magi Judal, you see. For so long, I blamed him for Cassim's death and Hakuryuu's fall into depravity. But in that other world I had a hundred years to think it over. It dawned on me that people choose their own paths, and no matter how hard you try, you can't always save them from the consequences."

"So you forgave him?"

"Not then. I couldn't. I did lose my precious friends. That isn't an experience you recover from so easily. You get what I mean, right?"

"I do."


	5. Chapter 5

"Is that Kouen?"

"No. It's a rabbit."

"A rabbit with tentacles."

"It has fins, too."

"There's no way that could be a rabbit."

"Squid-rabbit."

" _Disgusting."_

"You won't know for sure until you taste it."

"I am not putting this _thing_ in my mouth, Ha-ni-wa-baba!"

"Then no dinner for you. Unless you want to give the frog mice a try."

"Never!"

"Squid-rabbit it is."

The past two days have been generally unremarkable. They're still lost, and Judal still can't fly. He can, however predict when the next onslaught of migraines will hit — some unprecedented side effect, perhaps, of diving into loopholes in the void. At least that's what he calls these bright halos randomly popping up from the darkness.

Haniwa Boy has other ideas.

"Alternate universes? That's the best explanation you came up with?"

The faux doll beside him shifts. It's Alibaba's real face, but the body is wrong. This is officially one of the weirdest illusions so far, Alibaba's torso stuck to a fishtail. It's almost as bad as the ridiculously huge penguin wings glued to Judal's shoulder.

"So," he continues, "in another universe I'm a giant bird with no sense of fashion and you're the tuna Hakuryuu has for breakfast?"

"Something like that. I hope not."

"Sheesh. Wonder what the others look like."

In this universe, Kouha's alter-ego has lobster claws for hands and Koumei is half-zebra. Neither Judal nor Alibaba bother to search for the rest.

At least he's not running for his life from a fleet of enormous metal albatrosses with exploding poop. Or stuck in an island full of vipers, like last time. Why is it that everywhere he goes, not one of the monsters they encounter realizes that Haniwa Boy is a much, much better food option than a power-starved magi? Imagine the possibilities — pickled haniwa, stir-fry haniwa, haniwa pie, _haniwa and cheese_ …

"Over there!" shouts his companion. "That could be the right tunnel."

Judal is not impressed. After successfully ridding themselves of turtle flippers (Alibaba), moose antlers (Judal), two foot-long ivory tusks (sadly, also Judal), crocodile feet (Alibaba), a lion's mane (ugh, Judal again) and an assortment of other creepy appendages, here they are again, at the entrance of yet another portal. And no, Judal has no intention of passing through.

"This better be the right one. If I wake up with pink sea urchins in my hair, I swear I'll—"

"Judal. Let's go."

"—like, maybe we should rethink this, who knows what crazy world we'll land in next time—"

If the haniwa feels even an ounce of Judal's hesitation, he doesn't show it. "Come on. Before it closes," he says, unwavering as living pottery could ever be.

"—or if we'll ever get out. Hey, are you sure about this?"

"No."

This is their twenty-sixth attempt to cross dimensions, and they're nowhere closer to their world than before. The star-filled vortexes are always the wrong size or the wrong color, but sometimes Alibaba catches a glimpse of something familiar, or Judal hears a certain humming that could possibly be traced to agitated rukh. This time, Judal takes a close look and sees what appear to be jellyfish floating in the sky. Which, if his fading sense of reality is anything to go by, is completely absurd.

 _This is can't be it,_ he snorts.

And jumps right in.

When the light fades, they are lying on their backs in the middle of a vast field of violets. Or grass or just plain moss, whatever, Judal doesn't care.

He points one finger at their point of origin and clicks his tongue, too exhausted now to scream or frown or do anything else. "Wrong hole, Haniwa. Told you so," he grumbles, and with a final lift of his eyelids, rolls on his side and falls asleep.

* * *

"What happened next?"

"There was this huge glass palace filled with water. It was as big as a lake, and there were sharks inside. I fell in."

"And?"

"The sharks chased me around and one of them — it was the biggest of them all and had _hundreds_ of sharp teeth — and I really was just inches away from becoming shredded fish food; thankfully, Judal's ice powers decided to cooperate at the very last second, so yeah. I survived."

"Oh! That was — you're lucky Judal-chan rescued you."

"HE'S THE ONE WHO DROPPED ME IN THE FIRST PLACE!"


End file.
